By Jessica Willing, Contributing Writer
On Nov. 7, the University community noticed a number of new faces as over 100 second graders paid the campus a visit. For several hours, the students from Woodland Elementary School were able to experience a taste of college life: a yearly tradition for all second through fifth graders who attend the elementary school.
“The program started at Woodland Elementary about three years ago under their principal Kim Poe,” said Dr. Valerie Wright, an elementary education professor and the organizer of the field trip.
The trip is part of Woodland’s college incentive program, which has been going on for years. Starting in second grade, students go on yearly college visits to various campuses across the state of Florida to get a glimpse of what college is like. Students start out visiting Saint Leo’s campus in second grade. In third grade, they go to visit the University of South Florida. In fourth grade, they go to the University of Central Florida. And in their
final year at Woodland, fifth grade students visit the University of Florida. By seeing a variety of college campuses, students are given a tangible academic goal to strive towards as they grow older.
The field trips are only part of Woodland’s campaign to inspire students to aim for college at a young age. Teachers decorate their rooms with mementos of their alma maters, and there is a day set aside every week for students to show their school spirit by wearing a college shirt.
Tours of campus were led by 10 Elementary Education majors who took several hours out of their day to show students, teachers, and chaperones the sights of Saint Leo during their trip. Highlights of the tour included the Donald. R. Tapia School of Business, Daniel A. Cannon Memorial Library, Crawford Hall, the Marmion-Bowman Center, and Building 5.
While the fish tank featured on Animal Planet’s Tanked was a highly requested stop, the game room in Building 5 inevitably stole the show on many of the tours. Other student favorites of the tour included seeing the
swimming pool, getting to see the women’s volleyball team practice, and meeting Fritz. All of the second grade classes took a picture with the mascot before climbing on the bus to go back to school, lion toys in hand to remind them of all they had seen during their highly anticipated field trip.
As to whether or not Woodland’s program will accomplish its intended goal remains unclear. Teachers at the school said that the students always look
forward to the field trips. Even as the students get older, they enjoy and remember getting to see the different college campuses in Florida.
Woodland hopes that its emphasis on aiming to go to college has the potential to instill more academic drive and initiative into its students for the future.
